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You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Leveling speed
FuryBladeborne
Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
We know that Steven intends for leveling to 50 to take about 45 days at 4-6 hours a days. So, 180-270 hours. Presumably, that that estimate of leveling time is intended for those who join on day 1 of release. Players that join on day 1 and play actively will have a slower time to level as those players will need to wait for the nodes to develop or the player will need to level against mobs much lower level than the player or complete quests that are intended for much lower level players. So, players that start on release take 180-270 hours to level but that is very slow leveling due to undeveloped nodes.
If all this is right, then a new player joining a few months after release and going to a metropolis area while reading a couple leveling guides will probably level to max in far less than the projected 180+ hours.
I think that when the leveling speed balance is tested in A2, IS should aim for the 180+ hours to be the target for players that join late and can immediately go into developed areas. This means that the leveling speed would be much slower on release; but, the intended effort of leveling can be maintained for the life of the game.
What do you guys think?
If all this is right, then a new player joining a few months after release and going to a metropolis area while reading a couple leveling guides will probably level to max in far less than the projected 180+ hours.
I think that when the leveling speed balance is tested in A2, IS should aim for the 180+ hours to be the target for players that join late and can immediately go into developed areas. This means that the leveling speed would be much slower on release; but, the intended effort of leveling can be maintained for the life of the game.
What do you guys think?
3
Comments
This is the reason developers of many games lower the speed it takes to hit the level cap after a year or two, and is why higher experience gain "events" are common in some games - they want players to catch up.
Now, admittedly some of this is as a result of the games server software (resources allocated per zone - fewer people in lower level zones means less resources allocated to them, which frees up server capacity for new content without needing new hardware). However, it also has gameplay advantages (more people closer together in overall power means everyone has a larger pool of potential group and raid members, and PvP is all concentrated around a tighter character power range).
In other words, no matter how it starts out, Intrepid will reduce the time it takes to level - and even if some players will kot like it, it is actually in our best interests for this to happen.
also, remember that high level nodes might not always be avalable because they might get destroyed in node sieges, and then leveling up takes time.
200 hours to hit max level seems reasonable. also people will discover strategies and will probably level up much faster than that. leveling doesnt seem to matter that much in aoc, its mostly so you get introduced to skills little by little and not everything all at once.
This way even players at lvl25, who would have the full archetype skillset, could still do smth in pvp against higher lvls. And I'd imagine that it'd barely take any time to get to lvl25.
And those fully leveled up abilities would hit any enemy 100% of the time. It's just that their effect/dmg would be lesser due to gear tier and no augments.
I feel like it'd give low lvl players more confidence in any potential pvp and, depending on gear scaling, could even mean that low lvl players can at least put up a fight against a higher lvl player.
This would also allow low lvl players to punish any PKer, because their abilities would CC him and dmg him, while the PKer can only do dmg (and even that will be somewhat reduced by the stat dampen).
I used to play a game that was 2% an hour at level 50. Ok so that’s a bit extreme and I wouldn’t propose that as they changed that to 10% a hour after I’d been grinding at that speed for a couple of months. All I’m saying is levels should be more important and feel like a massive achievement so a level 50 feels like a high level and it’s not just ok lets rush to cap then that part of the game is ignored and doesn’t matter.
If anything I think level 0-40 should be fast than get real slow towards lvl 50. I’m aware most people just want a quick ride to max cap.
I don’t agree with people having all the base skills at lvl 25. Make it more of achievement and then it feels like your character is worth something.
I loved it in all mmo-rpgs I played, most recently classic wow.
I love the idea of doing quests, then going to do some dungeons with my friends or grinding some mobs for drops, and then returning to the quests without being overleveled to the point the quests are too easy to be enjoyable.
As long as the quests are well made and the game in general immersive, I'm all for taking my time leveling.
slow leveling is great, but I don't know if leveling on release will be as slow as you suggest in OP. Because this game is meant to be played in groups, there will be a lot more leveling groups on release that players can join compared to a year into the game. I like your idea of "leveling books" and other things to help new players level faster. This game isn't as end-game focused as other mmos, but there are still lots of reasons to be near or at max level.
Lvl 45-48 5% an hour - 60 hrs
Lvl 40-45 10% an hour - 50 hrs
Lvl 35-40 12% an hour - 41 hrs
Lvl 30-35 15% an hour - 33 hrs
Lvl 25-30 20% an hour - 25 hrs
Lvl 20-25 25% an hour - 20 hrs
Lvl 15-20 30% an hour - 15 hrs
Lvl 10-15 35% an hour - 14 hrs
Lvl 5-10 50% an hour - 10 hrs
Lvl 0-5 100% an hour - 5 hrs
373 hours total leveling
This is just a rough idea and maybe I’m just old fashioned but I’d like it closer to this.
Agree with that. I always loved MMO with super slow progression at the end. I would even be ok for 500 hours only for the last level and get a special aura visible when you reach lqst level. (Like in ragnarok online lvl 99).
In my opinion, the power/levels should increase rather fast early one, but then hit a plateau where the power progression is not as significant. They could stretch that plateau however long as they felt it it should be: the people craving the sense of accomplishment for the time spent would feel it, but it wouldn't make anyone not max level underpowered to uselessness.
In a way, it would combine a vertical progression in the early level with a horizontal one once the plateau was reached. Once on the plateau you don't gain as much HPs per level nor do you hit for much more, but you gain more and more options in both defence and offence.
Considering we get our second archetype at level 25, anywhere between 25 and 30 sound about right for the plateau. I'm not saying we should get there in a few hours, only that once there they could slow the progression a lot.
That's my take on it.
It gives you the feeling of accomplishing something not everyone will reach.
For me, a MMORPG is a long term game, so why not 2,3,4...month to reach max level? (with 10h of gametime a day)
Since the level won't really affect the gameplay when it comes to PvP.
as @Percimes mentioned above, a moderate progression to the Milestone of getting a secondary archetype is a good idea. Everything above that Milestone will be slowed down remarkably.
- The half of the levelcap is done, your class is unlocked with the most important stuff and now you have time for doing whatever you want to do - getting EXP for every action and finally, reaching the max level in the next quarter
I know that this game is supposed to be a bit of a throwback, but there had better be a lot of fun things to do that earn you xp, if it's even 200 hours to max level. Because consider that there is no combat xp for certain things (gathering/refining/crafting/more?) and we're not sure how much XP events like caravans, etc will yield.
One thing that makes a longer leveling process tolerable is if people of different levels can play with each other and be effective. IE, you don't leave your friends in the dust because you can play all day and they can't. This needs to be balanced against being easily able to power-level your buddy.
Steven has said that questing will not give enough xp to level all the way. Dungeons and other events are the filler, but I think it also means grinding camps too. Streamers are definitely going to map out the fastest leveling paths for people if they can. So it's best to make the highest XP things as dynamic as possible. Otherwise spamming dungeons becomes the fastest path.
One solution: Mob grinding has a chance of getting a bound drop that starts a (sharable? random from a pool of nearby quests?) quest. A person can only get one of these if they don't already have one. Completing this quest gives you significantly more xp/rewards than sitting and grinding those same mobs would, for the same time put in.
But since you get EXP for PvP, Quests, Mob grinding, Gathering, Processing, Crafting, Exploring and/or finding POI, Dungeons, Raids, Worldbosses, (all kind of events too?)
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Leveling
You will have so much possibilities in this game, that the time will fly by, so as the leveling process will. (Sadly ~280 hours for max level) In such a game I don't feel like this is enough.
And as far as I know the level in AoC is not everything
.
"There won't be any damage dampening due to differences in levels in either PvP or PvE.[18]" - AoC Wiki
So you can as mentioned above
You've got a sh*tload of variety in game that shouldn't be a problem
I think I had that in one game... Lost Ark or so...
Your solution is meant more for faster leveling I think
We're at the point where even if they were given good leveling content in a risk filled world, they would reject it based on their assumption that it would be bad, just like the low-quality leveling content/leveling areas they've seen so far in other modern mmo-rpgs. Just out of reflext.
Intrepid needs to ignore all the REE-ing and just make a good leveling experience and an exiting, dangerous, immersive, surprise filled world, and their work will absolutely pay off.
Sometimes you just need to force people to have fun.
Yep very true, sadly !
Last MMORPG I played where you were leveling for a few month and against actually strong Mobs was Maestia lol ! And FFXIV if my brain don't trolls me.
A decade old habit
It is the same as if you where eating ready meals all the time and then somebody comes and makes some actual fresh food and you don't want it because you got used to the ready meal and don't believe the fresh food can taste better than that. Or judging a dish you never ate before. lol
Idk it feels like a not small part of the current society prefers just braindead gaming and as you said, refuses everything where you need to think
The problem here is that the mass of society determines, what a "good leveling experience" is, which doesn't mean it actualy is, if you understand.
I'm completely with you, I want a long and "exiting, dangerous, immersive, surprise filled world!"
I would also leveling is just an annoying stage between you and the end game. That's what most MMOs are built around.
Ashes being a living world not just an end game theme park should make gameplay at all levels more viable.
I think this is really important because I’d like to be able to get ahead or fall behind but still be able to level with friends. One way of doing this is just distributing the exp gained depending on your level. The lvl 40 guy gets 80% of the experience and his lvl 25 friend gets 20% of the experience per mob. This could be improved and it’s been done before.
I believe FF14 has a similar system.
I enjoy 'standard content' enough in FF11 that I look forward to level syncing, specifically seek out bosses where my group can REMAIN Level Synced with our lowest level member who joined much later, and miss the feeling of doing lower level things sometimes.
But I'm also such an absolute weirdo that the game raised its level cap to 99 and then added Item Levels (gearscore) on top of that and I stayed at level 90 since then because I find the level 90 content more fun, so take anything I say with a pillar of salt.
I would be very interested to see that and learn from the implementation.
I have never managed to come up with one that would not be used to game/abuse situations.
This isn't to say I am not familiar with games where your level doesn't 'matter', or where the leveling process is complex enough that it doesn't come up (for example, where higher levels unlock more potential roles and activities but offers much less benefit to the activities that a low level player can experience).
But 'Indirect Level Sync', every method I have ever seen suggested, it seems that someone can come up with a way to abuse it within an hour or two.
The boss itself would adjust its difficulty to the amount of high lvl players present, but the overall difficulty requirement would stay the same. The low lvls players would still have to deal with their mechanics at the same high lvl as the big bois. This would also be a great initiation into the game's high lvl pve stuff.
Low lvl players would be on the outer layer and would be fighting their own mobs (and potentially mini-bosses) that were agroed by those players' presence. The mechanism/npc would have to be protected and/or used at crucial times of the raid to allow the high lvl players to progress through their fight.
All of this would obviously have to be very precisely balanced at any and all potential adjustments to the ratio between high and low lvl players. And if designed correctly, you could even have reverse difficulty where the high lvl part is somewhat easy, while the low lvl part is hardcore. Or it could even swap throughout the boss stages. In other words, there's a ton of ways you could design it, but it would obviously require a ton of work and testing to get it all just right.
The boss rewards would be the same as if the full high lvl raid killed it and the low lvls would get their rewards through their quest (and maybe some cool cosmetic for achieving this feat).
This would also perfectly fit my preferred method of ability acquisition (that is "you get all your base abilities by lvl25), because people would start experiencing how their full set of abilities plays asap.
Reason this normally falls apart is twofold.
1. Game allows alts, high level guilds just use those alts instead if it gives them even the TINIEST benefit, they don't bring in newbies, who are the people Level Sync is usually for.
2. This sort of thing is a content flipflop, where the 'high level thing' is 'required' for the 'low level player' to have the experience. Most times, the low level player just 'wants to level faster to get to have the high level part of the experience' when they recognize their replaceablility. Result is more people pushing to level FASTER instead of enjoying such content.
(FYI I'm unlikely to discuss or engage on this more, if you disagree that the above would happen or 'would be a reason not to implement this anyway', oki, I don't have much opinion on it.)
"There won't be any damage dampening due to differences in levels in either PvP or PvE.[18]" - AoC Wiki
This statement doesn't mean a L20 will be effective grouped with a L30. It just says that the L20 won't take extra damage or deal less damage due to level difference.
If the L20 has 500 hp and the L30 has 750 hp, and comparable differences in dealing damage then the L20 will just be less effective rather than totally useless, but with a larger difference he might be dead weight. Then there's how xp sharing works through level difference, aggro radius of lower levels, etc.
I'm not saying they can't/haven't figured out a good system, rather I'm saying that getting this right makes a longer leveling process more palatable.
My Hot take
Leveling should take 500 hours.
Add in Hell Levels at 10,20,30,40,45,48,49
These Hell levels are 4x the required XP.
Let's enjoy the inbetween stuff instead of players rushing to max.
This will SLIGHTLY discourage sweaties trying to no-sleep 2-3 days grind and hopefully chill them out as they realize it's a mountain of a climb. It's an endurance not a race.
500 / 12 hours = ~42 days
500 / 10 hours = 50 days
500 / 8 hours = ~62 days
500 / 6 hours = ~82 days
500 / 4 hours = 125 days
ASSUMING there is great content and fun stuff to do as a level 10/20/30/40. Events, dungeons and lots of areas that requires grouping.
Everquest - even today standard on P99 it takes 2-3 months to hit max level and the leveling in Everquest is enjoyable.
same, but for that to occur, they would need to have the balls to make leveling take +3000 hours
no mmo in history has ever done that lol